On politics in the Golden State

Assemblyman Chris Norby loss cements Democratic supermajority

November 15, 2012 | 8:04
am

Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby of
Fullerton said the door has shut on him in his contest with Democrat Sharon
Quirk-Silva, cementing a two-thirds majority for the ruling party in the state
Assembly.

Quirk-Silva’s lead in the 65th Assembly District
has tripled from election day to 3,348 votes, giving her 51.3% of the
vote, with 6,906 ballots still to be counted, the Orange County
registrar of voters reported late Wednesday.

"My 28
years of service to my city, county and state are now coming to a
close," Norby, 62, said in an email from Honduras, where he and his wife have been visiting family since the day after the election. "I’ve been blessed with
wonderful family and friends. One door has closed to me. Others will open."

The Senate had previously clinched a supermajority as well. Quirk-Silva,
a teacher and Fullerton city councilwoman, was back in the classroom Wednesday
morning, with plans to return to Sacramento to resume interviewing job applicants
to staff her Assembly office, according to campaign spokesman Bill Wachob.

Norby,
who served as mayor of Fullerton and as a member of the Orange County Board of
Supervisors before he won a 2010 special election for the Assembly seat, said he feels good about his career.

"Highlighting my three years in the Assembly was the abolition
of redevelopment agencies, freeing those $7 billion in annual property
taxes to serve public -- not private -- interests, ending eminent domain abuse
against small property owners," Norby said in the statement. "This effort
has been a focus of my public life, and accomplishing it during my legislative
tenure means a lot to me personally and to California as a whole."